Crown seeks 20-year sentence for Quebec City driver who killed 4 people

A Quebec Crown prosecutor says the Quebec City man who pleaded guilty to 19 charges related to a collision that killed two children and two adults on Sept. 2, 2021 should serve 18 to 20 years in prison.

Quebec court Judge Jean-Louis Lemay presided over two days of sentencing hearings at the Quebec City courthouse this week. Thirty of the victims' relatives attended, some providing written impact statements and others testifying in person.

Emma Lemieux, 10, her half-brother Jackson Fortin, 14, their mother, Shellie Fletcher-Lemieux, 44, and grandfather, James Fletcher, 68, all died of injuries sustained in the crash.

On Tuesday, Emma and Jackson's fathers detailed how their lives have been turned upside down.

Jean-Dominic Lemieux, Emma's father and Shellie Fletcher-Lemieux's husband of nine years, said learning of the crash was his "worst nightmare."

Lemieux said he sold the house where he lived with his wife and the two children because he couldn't handle staying there alone.

"All of a sudden, you wake up, and it's complete silence in the house," he said. "There's no one around anymore."

Jackson's father, Daniel Fortin, described his son as a teenager who brought people together.

"He didn't have a group of friends: everyone was his friend," Fortin said.

Fortin and Lemieux both recalled heartbreaking decisions in the hospital when doctors walked them through the process of donating their children's organs. The men said Emma and Jackson each saved five lives.

Éric Légaré, 43, spent the afternoon at a bar in Quebec City's Saint-Roch neighbourhood, where he admitted to having drunk seven glasses of wine and three shots of alcohol before getting behind the wheel last September.

He was travelling 130 km/h on the Dufferin-Montmorency highway in Beauport, Que., when he struck three vehicles that were stopped at a traffic light.

Already convicted of driving under the influence in 2017, Légaré testified that he "lost all judgment." He said the last thing he remembers from that day, before waking up in a hospital bed, was when he was still at the bar.

Surveillance video showed him stumbling out to his car and striking the car parked in front of him before pulling out onto the street. Another video recorded from the dashboard of a Quebec City bus showed him driving erratically, passing cars in front of him and going through a stop sign.